"Quick work, Russ," the big man complimented. "For a little sawed-off runt, you're real spry and active." He clucked to the mules and they settled steadily into the collars and moved on to the Three Bar. As they rolled up the lane the freighters could see the chuck wagon drawn up before the house, the remuda milling round the big pasture lot and a number of men moving among the buildings. The calf round-up was over. The Three Bar men viewed the freighters curiously as they swung the mule teams in front of the blacksmith shop, noted the rifle in the hands of each guard and the second one in easy reach of each driver. They knew what this portended. The freighters had stripped off the wagon-sheet lashed across the top of each load and the Three Bar men moved casually toward the wagons, curious to view the contents. "You boys get to knowing each other," Harris said. "These mule-skinners will be hanging out at the Three Bar from now on." The short man, known as Russet, removed his hat and scratched his head reflectively as he studied the first move in unloading his wagon. Moore promptly uncovered his own head and revealed his brilliant red shock of hair, his freckled face breaking into a genial grin. "Hello, you red-hot little devil," he greeted. "I'm glad some one has turned up with redder hair than mine. Brother--shake!" Russ looked him over carefully. "Don't you claim no relationship with me, you sorrel hyena," he said. "I won't stand it for a holy second. Get a move on and help me snatch off this load." All down the line the Three Bar men were getting acquainted with the freighters, introductions effected in much the same manner as that between Russet and Moore. A thousand pounds of oats were tossed from the top of the first wagon and when the concealing sacks were cleared away there were three heavy plows showing underneath, the spaces between them filled with shining coils of fence wire. The second load consisted of a dismantled drill, a crate of long-handled shovels, and more barbed wire; the third held a rake and a mowing machine, more wire, kegs of fence staples and a dozen forks. "The Three Bar will be the middle point of a cyclone," Moore prophesied as he viewed the implements. "Just as soon as this leaks out." "We fetched our cyclone openers with us," Russ assured him. "Let her buck." From the cook-shack door the girl viewed these preparations, then turned her eyes to the flat and visioned it with a carpet of rippling hay. There was a clatter of hoofs and a rattling of gravel as five horsemen put their sure-footed mounts down the steep slope two hundred yards back of the house and followed along the fence of the corral. The five Brandons had cut across the shoulder of the mountain. The girl wondered at this visit as she heard Lafe Brandon, the father and head of the tribe, ask Harris to put them up for the night. An hour later Harris and Lafe came to her door and she let them in.